The Me Decade

By the end of the 1970s, Americans had become pessimistic. The disastrous losses and outcome of the Vietnam War and the criminal activities during the Watergate scandal had shaken their confidence in the U.S. government, and a distrust of human nature had grown after the assassinations of John F. Kennedy, Robert Kennedy, and Martin Luther King Jr. Many Americans tried to relieve their pessimism through the acquisition of material goods.

In the 1980s, the government’s political and economic agenda, with its championing of U.S. capitalism, triggered a surge in self-interest to such a degree that the age has been tagged, the “Me Decade.” This period, which actually began in the late 1970s, was sanctioned and promoted by the election of Ronald Reagan as president. The presidential inauguration in 1981 cost eleven million dollars. Soon after, the First Lady continued the...